


for the greater good

by junietuesday25



Series: QLFC Entries [5]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, M/M, Muggle/Wizard Relations, The Deathly Hallows, Written Before Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald, idk how much that reveals i've never watched it but this might be canon non-compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:34:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23133247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junietuesday25/pseuds/junietuesday25
Summary: Albus has captured Gellert, and they have a little pre-arrest chat.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Series: QLFC Entries [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1616734
Kudos: 1





	for the greater good

**Author's Note:**

> **notes 3/13:** when i was first writing this, i had partly unfinished scenes and there was just an "Albus" with nothing afterward, so my friend put "yeeted". oh and funny thing, my position's prompt was a dance from the philippines! it was the tinikling, btw, it's this dance where there are people holding sticks that they push together to the music while the dancer steps over and around and between them. my mom actually used to do it

Gellert smirks up at him, from where he kneels on the broken pavement of the street, arms tied behind his back with ropes.

“Well?” he says, the blood dripping from his broken nose to the ground. “Are you going to kill me?”

With a shaking hand, Albus levels his wand at Gellert’s face.

* * *

Albus was taking a walk through Godric’s Hollow to clear his head from the argument with his brother a few minutes ago when he first saw him.

The boy took confident steps through the street, looking down at a sheet of parchment in his hand, glancing up around him every few seconds, seemingly searching for something. He had blond hair and striking blue eyes and Albus couldn’t seem to look away.

The boy met Albus’s gaze, and that was when Albus noticed the necklace he wore. It was a triangle with a circle inside, with a line going through the center vertically.

The sign of the Deathly Hallows.

Albus took a few steps closer to the boy, and called, “What are you doing?”

The boy looked up at him. “Who wants to know?”

“Are you here for Ignotius Peverell’s grave?” said Albus. “The owner of the Invisibility Cloak of the Deathly Hallows?”

Many tourists came to his hometown for that very purpose. They’d go out to the graveyard and look at Ignotius’s gravestone, poke around for a while, and eventually leave with a disappointed look. There wasn’t anything there; Albus had checked, multiple times.

“Not particularly,” said the boy. “The Cloak is only important to complete the set.”

Albus stared at him. The tale had said that the Invisibility Cloak was the smartest choice of Hallows. And this boy _didn’t_ want the cloak?

“I’d rather have the Elder Wand,” the boy continued. “What about you?”

He continued walking. Then he turned back to Albus.

“Well? Are you coming?”

Albus went.

* * *

The seconds stretch on. Gellert says, “I should have known you couldn’t do it. You were too cowardly to finish what we’d started—how could you kill me if you couldn’t even kill the Muggles?”

“I came to my senses,” Albus says. 

“You went soft,” says Gellert. “You lost everything about you that made you my partner.”

Albus’s wand is still pointed at Gellert’s face. Gellert seems unconcerned with that fact.

“I thought you were different,” Gellert says.

* * *

Albus and Gellert pored over books in the highest room of the Dumbledore household, sprawled across Albus’s floor. Stacks of notes were scattered around them as the sun shone through the window.

“Look,” Gellert said suddenly, pointing at a sentence on a page of the book he was reading, “do you think—”

“ALBUS!” 

Albus looked up at the shout. It was an irritated yell from his younger brother, Aberforth. Albus huffed.

“YOU NEED TO HELP ME WITH ARIANA—”

“I’m _busy!_ ” Albus called back, glancing at Gellert. His sharp blue eyes stared at the door, glaring daggers. The reassurance that Gellert felt the same only heightened his annoyance towards Aberforth.

“IS IT GELLERT?” Aberforth yelled up, frustration lacing his tone. “IT’S ALWAYS GELLERT THIS, HALLOWS THAT, YOU KNOW YOU STILL HAVE A FA—”

Albus waved his wand, and Aberforth’s voice abruptly cut out.

“Do you really talk about me that much?” said Gellert, sounding flattered. Albus gave him a suddenly shy grin.

“Well,” Albus said, “I think you’re…interesting.”

“Interesting. Huh.”

* * *

“I’m different than _you,_ ” says Albus. “I know that wizards don’t deserve to rule over Muggles.”

Gellert laughs. “We’re clearly superior!” he says. “Our magic—”

“Our magic doesn’t make us any better than them.”

“Look how they treat each other! Creating contraptions of all kinds to murder each other, to murder us? People seem to have forgotten about the witch trials. They hung us for helping them. Now we strike back.”

“You act like we’re better! You act like we have no Cruciatus or Killing or Imperius Curses!”

“So go ahead,” says Gellert. “If you think they’re so awful, use them on me. I deserve them, do I not?”

“I—”

Albus opens his mouth, and pushes the wand closer to Gellert’s face. No sound escapes him.

“I never said that,” he says finally.

“You didn’t need to,” Gellert says. “I know you think so.”

Albus isn’t sure how right Gellert is.

* * *

The two of them walked along the rocky shoreline, listening to the waves crashing against the cliffs.

“I want to start a movement,” said Gellert. “Wizards deserve more than to be hidden.”

Albus looked at him. “The Muggles will riot. They’ll fight us. People fight what they fear.”

“Then we’ll fight back,” said Gellert, and there was a sparkle of excitement in his eyes. It was a little bit pretty. “Wizards are so much more powerful than Muggles—we could defeat them!”

“And then what?” said Albus. “What would happen after we ‘defeat’ the Muggles? Would they just—”

“We could do whatever we wanted,” Gellert said. “We could—we could make them work for us, make them like house-elves. I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” he added, in a kinder tone, “but it’ll all be for the greater good. Wizards deserve our rights back, and for that to happen, Muggles need to lose some.”

Albus wasn’t sure how to feel about this. Muggles surely didn’t deserve that kind of treatment. But the way Gellert spoke so passionately about it…

“For the greater good,” he repeated.

* * *

“You’ve stalled for long enough,” Gellert continues. “Might as well get it over with, you know?”

Albus tightens his fingers around his wand. He opens his mouth to say the curse. He gets in position to do the movement.

Gellert has done so many terrible things. He’s hurt so many people. He’s killed so many people. He’s done despicable, unspeakable acts that go against most, if not all, of Albus’s morals, and yet he hesitates to strike the killing blow and rid the world of the cause of all these monstrosities. He stares into the challenging, smug gaze of the boy he once loved (still loves?).

And drops his arm by his side. Gellert smirks.

“ _Expecto Patronum,_ ” Albus says, and when his patronus appears, he tells the trusty phoenix, “Tell the Aurors that I have Gel—Grindelwald in custody and that they should pick him up and send him to Nurmengard.”

“Smart,” says Gellert. “And fitting, too. Sending me to my own prison?”

Albus can’t bear to look at him. He turns away as the phoenix flies into the dusk.


End file.
